It would be better,
thought Ramon, to come upon her unawares, and so he went softly and very
slowly, placing each foot as carefully as though he were stalking a wild thing
of the woods.
Annie-Many-Ponies did not hear him coming. All her heart was yearning toward
that far away mesa. "Wagalexa Conka--cola!" she whispered, for "cola" is the
Sioux word for friend. Aloud she dared not speak the word, lest some tricksy
breeze carry it to him and fill him with; anger because she had betrayed his
friendship. "Wagalexa Conka--cola! cola!"
Friendship that was dead--but she yearned for it the more. And it seemed to
her as she whispered, that Wagalexa Conka was very, very near. Her heart felt
his nearness, and her eyes softened. The Indian look--the look of her fighting
forefathers--drifted slowly from her face as fog, drifts away before the sun.
He was near--perhaps he was dead and his spirit had come to take her spirit by
the hand and call her cola--friend. If that were so, then she wished that her
spirit might go with his spirit, up through all that limitless blue, away and
away and away, and never stop, and never tire and never feel anything but
friendship like warm, bright sunshine!
Down at the cabin a sound--a cry, a shout--startled her.
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